One of the major cost items in the Index Plus+ system is the memory needed to store the information of the shows, which includes channel, date, time, length and title of a show. This practically requires as much memory as is needed for implementation of an electronic program guide (EPG). Also, the number of days in advance of the program telecast that recordings can be scheduled is limited by memory and data bandwidth.
The invention greatly reduces the memory requirement and hence the cost of implementation. It is primarily intended to be implemented without a locally stored EPG data base.
The system includes an input that receives indications identifying a television program broadcast, including one or more of channel, start time, end time, date, day of the week and length. It also includes a video system recorder controller that provides commands to one or more of a video recorder and a tuner to record a television program according to one of the input indications, an index memory that stores video tape identification and video tape index information and the identification indication for television programs recorded under control of the video system recorder controller and a data receiver that receives data comprising titles, sets of television broadcast identifiers, each such set including one or more of channel, start time, end time, date, day of the week and length, and associations between a plurality of the titles and a plurality of the sets of television broadcast identifiers. The title from the data receiver is stored in the index memory and associated with the video tape identification and video tape index information and the identification indication associated with the title.